


The Many Adventures of Admiral Chiq Phillay's Porg Commandos

by asukawashere



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AT-AT - Freeform, AT-ST, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Executor, Gen, Humor, Illustrated, Illustrated Fic, Imperial Officers, Lady Ex, all the porgs, all the porgs are named after chicken dishes and restaurants, attack porgs, blizzard force, but man are they hilarious, crackfic, did I mention there would be porgs?, gratuitous fast food puns, gratuitous non-graphic porg violence, idek, more porgs, murders of porgs, oc porgs, porgs, porgs everywhere, porgs on the Lady Ex, porgtugese, the empire, the porgs are the only worthwhile thing in the sequel trilogy, this started as a cute sketch and spiraled out of control, thundering herd - Freeform, tons of porgs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-13 10:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13569132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asukawashere/pseuds/asukawashere
Summary: To counter the unfortunate slapdash repair skills of rebel astromechs that lead to the loss of theMillennium Falconover Bespin, Darth Vader enlists a new, elite unit of saboteurs to aid Death Squadron. The galaxy may never be the same…





	1. When Piett Meets Phillay

**Author's Note:**

> Right, well, I have no idea how this happened, but somehow I broke a 7-year fanart-free and 11-year fic-free streak to create this…thing. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Shoutout the the folks over at [Imperials](https://discord.gg/fccK76) on Discord for feeding this rabid monster of a plotbunny.

Recently promoted Fleet Admiral Firmus Piett of Death Squadron spent many a night unable to sleep in the weeks following the unmitigated disaster that was Bespin. While he’d been spared an execution on the spot when the Rebel freighter _Millennium Falcon_ made the jump to hyperspace—despite his technical crew’s assurances that such a feat was nigh impossible—the admiral feared that Lord Vader would change his mind one of these days and hold him accountable for the failure. Lorth Needa, after all, had been killed for less of a blunder.

Piett’s fears came to a head during a meeting some three weeks later. The senior crew of _Executor_ were finishing up their routine weekly meeting to discuss the running of Death Squadron when the oppressive weight of the sith lord’s presence suddenly bore down on the room of soldiers. 

“And now,” their lord pronounced ominously, “we will discuss the escape of the _Millennium_ _Falcon_ , and how such…errors will be prevented in the future.”

 _This is it,_ thought Piett, _this is where he chokes me like he did Captain Needa._ The Axxilan thought he saw a flash of concern cross the face of his friend, General Max Veers, during the dark lord’s pronouncement, but couldn’t take his gaze off the tall, looming sith long enough to glimpse the general out of more than the corner of his eye.  
  
A moment passed by, wherein Piett found his continued breathing somewhat baffling.

“In light of the apparent rebel capacity to jury-rig repairs in improbable situations, I have decided that a more advanced saboteur unit will be assembled. To command this unit, Admiral Chiq Phillay will be joining Death Squadron today.”  
  
At the end of the announcement, the blast doors to the bridge conference room slid open smoothly and the collection of officers turned as one to observe their new colleague.  
  
Only to be met with the sight of an apparently empty entranceway. 

The officers stared in silence for a few more moments (Piett was _still_ breathing, against all odds), until curiosity got the better of one of them, “Ah, Lord Vader,” inquired Lt. Suba, the _Executor_ ’s Chief of Security, “shall I comm my men and see if the admiral was waylaid on his way here?”

A high-pitched chittering sound started up before the lieutenant even finished the question. A chittering, Piett discovered as he craned his neck to see past the long conference table, originating from a tiny birdlike creature wearing a miniature Imperial officer’s uniform hat and a tiny facsimile of an admiral’s rank plaque. As it voiced its response, the small creature flapped its stubby wings furiously and fluttered up to perch on the edge of the table, next to the dark lord. It then stretched its right wing towards its head in a vague approximation of a salute.

“Admiral Phillay thanks you for your concern, Lieutenant, but that will not be necessary,” translated Vader. 

Even more silence ensued, until Veers, never one to fear the dark lord’s wrath, ventured, “Ah, with all due respect, milord, what can this…creature _do_ , precisely?”

Vader turned toward the general. “You question me, General?”  
  
Veers did not backtrack. “No, milord, not you. I question the physical capacity of this…this…bird… to damage rebel assets.” The chittering returned, taking on a vaguely indignant tone.

“ _Admiral_ Phillay finds your lack of faith disturbing, General. _He_ is a porg, from the planet Ach-To. His species possesses razor-sharp teeth that can chew through even durasteel. Porgs have a singular attraction for collecting shiny objects combined with a truly astonishing capacity to find exactly the wires most necessary for machines to operate. The admiral’s men are master saboteurs. In fact, I will permit him to demonstrate his unit’s competency. Next week we will travel to Abafar, to _convince_ the settlements there to provide a supply of Rhydonium for our experimental weapons development facilities. While I attend to the negotiations, you may take a spare AT-AT and a handful of AT-ST units and conduct a field exercise in opposition to our new Porg Commandos. You shall see, General, that my confidence in them is not misplaced.”

Piett had remained silent, still wary of drawing the sith’s attention, but privately he agreed with the general and noticed a similar air of skepticism still surrounded the men as Vader dismissed them to their various duties. _At least,_ the man thought to himself while he gathered his datapad, _the Rebels won’t see any of_ this _coming._

 


	2. The Attack of the Kay Effsee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> General Veers commences a field exercise against the porg commandos while Darth Vader attends to his own mission. Piett wishes very much to not have to cope with the paperwork this will involve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Umm, so I can't say as I ever wrote any sort of combat scenario before. (I have plenty of professional writing experience…in the field of biology editorials. Creative writing, not so much my thing.) I do hope y'all can figure out what's going down in this here military exercise.
> 
> Also, I'm bumping the rating up to T for some mild swearing and gratuitous (but not really graphic) porg violence (you may wish to approach this with caution if you were ever traumatized by Hitchcock's _The Birds_ ).

Later that night, Piett found Veers in the Lady Ex’s officers’ lounge, surrounded by some of his Thundering Herd’s more prominent names and nursing a pint of ale. He appeared to be regaling his men with the tale of the earlier meeting.  
  
“—and then, then this tiny fluffball flutters in, and it starts chirping at us, and somehow Lord Vader is convinced an army of the little critters can take out an AT-AT!”

Colonel Freja Covell’s expression rather indicated that he was wondering if his general had had a few too many at that point, despite the lack of empties decorating the table, so Piett took pity on Max and stepped in, “Be that as it may, Max, our lord has updated the ship’s master schedule to include a field exercise next week on Abafar, so you’d best be selecting the units you intend to utilize and come up with some sort of plan for the event.”  
  
“Fir! Man, you didn’t tell me the Navy was so hard up for recruits that you lot needed to enlist a bunch of fuzzwads to do your jobs!” On another night, Firmus might have entertained a few rounds of good-natured Army vs. Navy sniping, but this was not the time for it.  
  
“I assure you, Max, Lord Vader’s new recruits came as a surprise to me as well, but I am not in the habit of questioning his military expertise.” _Unlike you, you great tactless berk,_ was left unsaid but not entirely unheard.

“Questioning his—Fir, you’re not still runnin’ ‘round with that notion that Lord Vader’s planning on chokin’ you to death when you least expect, are ya? I told’ya two weeks ago, if he didn’t off you on the spot, he’s not going to do it now. ’S not his style.”  
  
“Be that as it may, deliberate antagonization seems unnecessary, Max. Treat these ‘fuzzwads,’ as you say, as a viable threat, pick a commander for your field unit, and file the forms so I don’t have to deal with chasing you down for paperwork!”

“A commander, huh? The fluffball have a commander yet?”  
  
“According to the schedule, a Captain Kay Effsee will be in charge of the field portion of the exercise, with the admiral commanding remotely from _Executor_.”  
  
As this revelation, rather than having the intended result of inducing a desire in the general to attend to his paperwork and prove himself the new admiral’s equal in that manner, instead produced a string of furious mutters about “the fuzzball” not being “man…chicken…whatever enough” to face down the Thundering Herd in person, Piett bid the general and his men a hasty goodnight and retreated to his quarters.

 

* * *

 

The morning of the field exercise dawned bright, hazy, and orange, like every other day on Abafar, a strange desert world whose chalky, dusty surface made for a strange visual spectacle. As the transport descended with the Thundering Herd’s equipment, General Veers’s expression remained stony while he watched from the bridge. Piett had noted a few days earlier that Colonel Covell’s skepticism the night following the admiral’s introduction seemed to have roused Max’s ire, since he was placed in charge of the ground forces for the exercise. While this was unusual for Max, who much preferred to lead from the front, Piett had rather gotten the impression that Admiral Phillay’s selection of an underling to lead his forces had forced Max’s hand, lest he be perceived as either untrusting of his men or afraid of a…Firmus had lost track of which insulting term for the porgs Max was favoring today.  
  
(No one he’d consulted seemed to have any idea how the Porg Commandos intended to get to the surface and Piett hadn’t dared to interrupt Lord Vader’s meditations during the week to ask what could be perceived as a stupid question.)  
  
What Piett did know from the paperwork, however, is that the Porg Commandos had been outfitted with small sensors, designed to register a “hit” from General Veers’s men—their weapons and the turbolasers of the Herd’s walkers had been switched to a non-firing mode to prevent unnecessary casualties; “hits” were to be registered by the targeting computers and, from what _Executor_ ’s admiral gathered, any porgs that registered as “hit” would either play dead or flutter off the field. At least, he hoped that was the idea—a requisition form for 4,000 sensors with built-in, one-way communicators that had crossed his desk earlier in the week seemed to support the theory, and a corresponding technical crew modification form had registered the programming changes to the AT-AT Blizzard 8 (one of the walkers that had not seen action at Hoth due to a somewhat cantankerous history of needing adjustments to its servomotors).  
  
An hour later, the walkers were deployed, the transport was relocated off to the side of the area designated for the exercise, and a handful of droids with holocams were relaying live footage to the bridge. The general had ordered Colonel Covell’s AT-AT to stand in a roughly central position, with the four AT-ST units spread out, all sensors live and searching for the tiniest blip on radar. Visual input on Abafar was untrustworthy—the lack of shadows and hazy atmosphere made concealment simple—but non-visual sensor technologies should register life signs and movement, specially calibrated as they had been to detect entities the size of porgs.  
  
Except, at the moment, there were no life signs registering outside the walkers or their dropship.  
  
“Did the feather dusters chicken out?” wondered Veers, triggering a series of gruff chuckles amidst the members of the bridge crew who had encountered Admiral Phillay in person the week before.  
  
Piett had no idea, but, determined to carry out his duty to the letter, he authorized a broadcast on all Imperial channels. “All units, you may begin the exercise when ready.” With an unwavering expression of polite interest on his face, he retired to his ready room to view the holocam footage (his expression once the door had shut, however, wavered a great deal).  
  
For the first few minutes, it appeared nothing unusual happened. General Veers halfheartedly sent his scout walkers into a search formation, an order with which they reluctantly complied. Nothing, was showing on the sensors, however, until—

“General! We have life signs registering in the northeast quadrant! Mass is consistent with a flock of avians the size of the porg commando unit flying close to the ground. They’re heading our way rapidly!”

“Take the other AT-ST units and move to engage!” the general ordered swiftly. “Fire as soon as you’re in range!”

Five minutes later, the AT-STs opened fire in the direction of the indicated life signs. Despite the targeting computer’s registering a hypothetical direct intersection with the path of the flock, however, none of the life signs stopped moving.

“What, are the fuzzwads cheating now?” asked Veers.

Except, Piett saw as the holocam moved into range of the mass of life signs, the porgs weren’t cheating. The porgs, in point of fact, were nowhere to be found at all. What had moved into range of the AT-ST walkers was a small stampede of odd struthiforms that seemed utterly indifferent to the presence of Imperial military might.

“Er, general, looks like it’s a flock of Void striders,” the lead scout pilot pointed out.

“I can see that for myself, Lieutenant, but if these are just the local fauna, where the kriff are the fluffballs?”

And then, Blizzard 8’s left foreleg buckled and sparks flew everywhere.  
  
“Colonel Covell, report!” barked Veers.  
  
An incoherent flurry off muffled swearing; familiar, enraged chittering; and flapping, feathery noises was the only response.

“Covell!” Veers tried again. This time, the AT-AT gunner—Piett absently wondered what had happened to Covell—managed an attempt to reply.

“Sir! They’re in the ducts! They got the Colonel! They’re—ack!— _everywhere_! _No, you little kriffer, don’t you dare chew that!_ Don’t—zzzt!” The connection faded in a hiss of static.

“Scouts! Move back to Blizzard 8 and provide support,” Veers shouted, as the hatches of the lamed walker opened up and troopers started pouring out, writhing clouds of tiny avians flying about their heads and slamming into the troopers’ helmets with wild abandon.

“Uh, sir, I’m not sure we can comply. Look at our transport!”  
  
In another situation, the Axxilan admiral might have suspected the holocams were displaying a localized stormcloud forming around the dropship. However, given Abafar’s notoriously arid climate and the indisputable fact that the cloud was pouring out from spontaneously-appearing gaps in the hull plating, it became rather apparent that the “cloud” was, in fact, a seething flock of porg reinforcements.

A seething flock that immediately moved on an intercept course with the AT-ST units, hence the lieutenant’s concern.

“Well, move as close as you can before they intercept, at least, man!” Piett had never seen Veers truly lose his cool when he was commanding his troops, but he rather suspected the terse tones indicated the general was very, very close. The porgs had more or less blindsided him.

Amidst the chaos erupting over the comms, the door to Piett’s ready room fwooshed open and the looming figure of Darth Vader strode purposefully in. The short admiral jumped to attention. “Lord Vader, welcome back! I trust your negotiations were a success!”

“I have informed the miners that they will be providing us with the Rhydonium. Those that disagreed have been _persuaded_ of their folly.” Piett took this to mean that they were missing several major appendages. “Inform the dropship on the ground that it will be picking up 82 metric tons of weapons-grade Rhydonium after the field exercise.”

“At once, my lord!” Piett busied himself with relaying the appropriate orders.

“I believe General Veers has begun to see the error of underestimating Admiral Phillay’s forces,” the sith lord observed.

“Er, indeed, Lord Vader, it would seem these porg commandos are exceeding all our expectations,” Piett agreed, as the last operant AT-ST tipped over and plummeted unceremoniously to the ground while the cloud of porgs that had swarmed it fluttered away to rejoin their brethren. Privately, the admiral had no intention of _ever_ letting Max live this down.

Back at Blizzard 8, the poor gunner had abandoned the walker and was dragging the limp form of Colonel Covell under one arm while he raised the other hand palm out in a gesture of surrender. An unusually pale-feathered porg wearing a captain’s rank plaque perched on his shoulder, screeching furiously and gesturing animatedly with its wings. The troopers had fared slightly better with their rifles, a small gathering of “hit” porgs arrayed calmly to the side of the ongoing melee where they couldn’t be stepped on (the troopers that registered as “dead” lay more or less still where they had “fallen,” trusting their armor to protect them), but if Piett was not misreading the computer displays, most of the troopers lying on the ground registered hits from friendly fire. The porgs, after all, were not armed with blasters. A handful of additional troopers sprawled on the ground despite the computer not reading them as either “hit” or unconscious—Piett supposed they had simply had enough of the chaos and figured that the sooner they gave up, the sooner the deranged assault would end.

  
  
One trooper flailed while a half dozen of the adorable avians latched onto the power pack of his blaster rifle, gnawing furiously. Another porg flapped wildly around his head, scratching with its tiny, webbed talons until the barrel of the trooper’s rifle collided with the helmet of the disarmed—where _did_ the man’s blaster go?—trooper next to him, sending both to the ground in a disoriented tangle of limbs and technology. Nearby, two porgs savagely tore at the armored gloves of another trooper, preventing him from picking up a discarded—oh, _there_ it is!—blaster lying an arm’s reach away. One by one, troopers were forced to resort to using disabled weapons as bats, clutch their bleeding fingers to their chests to prevent further injury, or flee outright from the chaotic flurry of sand, feathers, and tiny avian rage.

After a few more minutes of watching the active population of troopers diminish and the “hit” porgs pile up, Lord Vader eventually seemed to take pity on his beleaguered human forces. “Come, Piett,” he intoned, “we shall find out if the general is yet ready to concede defeat.”  
  
“As you say, milord.” The sith strode out of the ready room, the fleet admiral trailing in his wake, and the pair returned to the bridge proper.

Max was wild-eyed and furious for all that he stood in stiff, stony silence, was the Axxilan’s first observation. Whether due to his men’s poor showing or the sheer indignity of being bested by barely-sentient feather dusters, Firmus couldn’t say, but if the general turned any brighter red he’d be glowing in the dark. Lord Vader had no compunctions about adding salt to his wounds, though.  
  
“As you can see, General Veers, porgs are a force to be reckoned with.”  
  
“They are, milord,” the general ground out.  
  
“Perhaps you would like to surrender,” the tone made it apparent that this was not a suggestion. The general lifted his commlink to his mouth and clicked it on.

“Veers to all units. All units, stand down. Repeat, all units, stand down, over.”

“Copy that, General, all units standing down, over.” Blizzard 8’s gunner had apparently retrieved a personal commlink from one of the troopers, and as the ranking (conscious) officer, waved hand signals to stand down towards those troopers whose commlinks had been disabled by the porgs (which, incidentally, turned out to be most of them). The dusty yellowish porg on his shoulder (this, Piett surmised, must be the Captain Kay Effsee from the mission outline) fluttered off, screeching what must have been an equivalent order in his native tongue, for the roiling of the flock evened out nearly instantly into a series of slow, lazy spirals toward the ground.

The shocked silence that reigned through the bridge was suddenly broken by the sharp tap-rolling of a small bit of round metal on the floor. As every eye whirled toward the sound, another two taps fell and rolled away. Looking up, Piett observed the small triangular grate near the bridge ceiling was squeaking its way loose. Without any further warning, the grate cover popped off and out tumbled none other than Admiral Phillay himself, fluttering gently to the ground and chittering softly.

“Admiral Phillay has arrived so that you may concede defeat to him in person, General,” Vader announced.

A great deal off befuddled blinking overcame the bridge crew at this odd pronouncement (that, or they were still stymied by the sudden and unconventional arrival of the feathery admiral). Veers, on the other hand, probably expected this sort of stunt by now, for he merely said, “Very well. Admiral Phillay, your forces performed admirably. I’m still uncertain precisely how this happened, but rest assured my men and I will be analyzing the footage from this exercise with rapt attention to improve our own performance in the future.” A few of the bridge crew winced in sympathy; all of them knew that translated roughly to “I will be working my men to the bone until they feel my burning shame a thousandfold,” in Veers-ese.  
  
The pint-sized admiral—Phillay, not Piett, who would thank you not to comment on his height—chittered smugly and brushed his wingtip against the general’s uniform leg in what might have been either consolation or encouragement; no one could say for certain. He then fluttered back up to the duct whose grate he’d just knocked out, landed inside, and skittered back to, presumably, wherever he’d been before. The crew listened as the skritching of talons on metal faded quickly into the background.

“Ensure all participants in today’s exercise receive adequate medical attention and all disabled equipment is hauled back onto the transport before the ship goes to retrieve the Rhydonium,” Lord Vader demanded as he, too, swept out of the room dramatically. Veers followed silently at his heels. Piett had already relayed the orders regarding the Rhydonium supply to the dropship crew, who had deployed a dozen astromech droids to patch up the unscrewed hull plating the porgs had come pouring out of, and waved to a nearby lieutenant to relay the rest of the sith’s instructions, gave command of the bridge to Commander Brandei, and followed his friend and their commander out the doors just in time to hear Max venture, “Lord Vader?”

“Yes, General?”

“Ah, might I recruit some of these porgs to supplement the efforts of my men?”

 _Good old Max,_ thought Piett, _he sees something that can add to his forces’ might and he seizes the opportunity._ Never mind that this particular opportunity would have Navy scuttlebutt in tears for weeks as they mocked their Army counterparts.  
  
“We shall see,” was the only reply the inscrutable sith lord offered his general.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vicious porg is vicious.
> 
> For the curious—the porgs navigate relative to the magnetic field of the planet they're on, much like real migratory birds (homing pigeons being the most famous example of such birds, but it's a common ability among Earthly avians), so the bright-hazy weird shadowless unnavigable atmosphere of Abafar is irrelevant to them.
> 
> Colonel Covell lost consciousness when a porg popped a grate off of some part of the AT-AT at exactly the right time and angle to whack him in the face and concuss him.
> 
> If you have ever been dive-bombed by an angry songbird or parakeet, those things can really lay the hurt down if they have a mind to! *Would not want to have porgs bouncing off her noggin, helmet or no helmet.*
> 
> I almost, _almost_ made Kay Effsee the designation of the porg commando's droid assistant (i.e. K-FC) but I came up with a better plan on that front. You'll see. Eventually.
> 
> There will be more of this. Just not immediately; I have to do real life things like waste time on Facebook and shop for groceries and, oh yeah, work. That thing.


	3. The Great Lounge Remodel: Meet the Porg!Bot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just in case live porgs on the Lady Ex weren't bad enough, Lord Vader feels the need to inflict mechanical ones on the crew as well.

Some twenty-nine hours later found Max and Firmus drifting in the direction of the officers’ lounge again, the latter nagging the former about the less than properly detailed post-exercise report he’d submitted earlier in the day. 

_The boys went to Abafar. Thrice-damned feather dusters actually got them,_ the synopsis had read in its entirety. It had been accompanied by a requisition form for the interminable use of one of the larger onboard training facilities (“really, Max, those forms were designed to book short and specific time frames, and ‘until the men physically can’t move anymore’ isn’t something the ship’s computer can process!”) and a set of orders for a truly egregious quantity of remedial sim time for Colonel Covell and all the walker crews. Firmus doubted he’d be seeing hide nor hair of Freja outside of on-duty meetings for the near future. 

As it happened, most of the lounge appeared empty to the ranking officers as they walked in. Or, rather, it wasn’t so much lacking in total personnel as it was that the personnel who should have been distributed evenly throughout the room were all condensed around a wall to the left of the luxuriously appointed bar counter. A wall that looked decidedly different than last Piett recalled.

What had been a smooth, Imperial-red wall accented with fine crown molding and some sort of large painting—one of those ugly abstractions of nothing identifiable produced by some society-born Coruscanti artist which possessed no value outside what snobbish coreworlders would spend for the bragging rights to own it—was now plastered over with haphazard lumps of duracrete and bits of framing and tubing. The apparent renovation in progress was attended to by some half dozen maintenance personnel on scaffolding who continued to slather on seemingly random clumps of material as the officers watched. _What were these men even trying to build?_  
  
Firmus Piett had no recollection of any renovation requests for the officers’ lounge crossing his desk recently. And the only reason the paperwork would fail to cross his desk is if the orders came from higher up. On Death Squadron’s flagship, there was exactly one man who outranked the Fleet Admiral.

The real question, then, was, _what had Lord Vader ordered Maintenance to do to the lounge?_

A possible answer to this presented itself as the two men moved closer to investigate. For while Piett still couldn’t see over the shoulders of the men in front of him, the considerably taller general had no such difficulties. Max’s sudden exclamation of “fluffballs!?” both answered Piett’s earlier question and served to catch the attention of the other officers, who cleared space for their seniors to get a better look.

The porgs. Of course it had something to do with porgs. Everything bizarre in the last ten days of the admiral’s life had _something_ to do with _porgs_. And lo, there they were: overseeing the strange renovations at the foot of the misshapen monolith-in-progress stood Admiral Phillay, his right-hand porg Captain Effsee, and a small, metallic droid that bore a startling resemblance to—what else?—a porg. The last took notice of the new arrivals and used its wing-mounted repulsors to hover over to the admiral and general.  
  
“Greetings Admiral Piett, General Veers,” it chirped in an oddly soothing, feminine voice. “I am M-FC, human-porg relations. May I be of service to you today?”

  
  
“Sure,” Veers chimed in, “you can tell us what in blazes this thing you’re building is!”

“The end goal of this renovation to the officers’ lounge is to create a lifelike replica of the cliffs of Ach-To for the comfort of our porg officers. It will feature a series of perches, simulated rivulets flowing with the finest spring water, and delightfully landscaped plantings of Ach-Toan grasses and mosses. Would you like to view a rendering of the completed structure?”  
  
“Ah, no thanks, M-FC. Wait. Effsee? Thought that was the little blond bastard’s name?”  
  
If a droid could blush, this one would be. Piett wasn’t certain how he could tell this, precisely, but M-FC was oddly expressive for a few bits of floating bird-shaped metal.

“Captain Effsee was most fascinated with my form during my assembly. Upon my activation, the captain presented himself as a suitor and Lord Vader incorporated his designation into my own.”  
  
“Well, that’s… different.” No one was entirely sure if Max was referring to the idea of a porg-droid relationship or the idea of Darth Vader playing matchmaker, or both. None of the officers present were particularly inclined to ask. Firmus wasn’t one to judge—after spending half a career hauling pirate scum from every other third-rate brothel on his homeworld (and a poverty-stricken ecumenopolis like Axxila had endless reserves of these to choose from), there wasn’t a fetish in the galaxy that could shock him—but all the same, he didn’t need any details.  
  
“Captive-raised avians _are_ known to select unusual substitutes for mates in the absence of a suitable conspecific. But, ah, I wasn’t aware that held true for sentients. Especially ones surrounded by 4,000 members of their own species,” noted Gherant, a lieutenant commander Piett had handpicked for his bridge crew. The admiral vaguely recalled Gherant mentioning birdwatching in the past.  
  
“Yes, that’s right, you enjoy going birding on your shore leaves, don’t you Gherant?” An idea was coalescing in Piett’s head.  
  
“Er, yes, Admiral, that’s true.”  
  
“Excellent. Report to my ready room at 0700 tomorrow. I need an officer to help decipher paperwork relating to the porgs and I think you’re just the man for the job.”

“Ah, forgive me for saying so, Admiral, but I really don’t know anything about porgs, specifically.” Gherant seemed to have realized too late that giving off the slightest appearance of having any information that may lead to the untangling of this whole porg conundrum would land him right in the thick of the insanity. “I mean, there are so many avians in the universe, and I really only watch the subsentient ones, and…”  
  
“Nonsense, man!” Veers cut him off. “A bird’s a bird, innit? I’m sure you’ll be able to help the Admiral a great deal. Off you go, best be getting a good night’s rest for your morning briefing, right?” It didn’t take much to herd Gherant out of the lounge—undoubtedly the man was fearful that he’d go and accidentally volunteer himself for something even more ludicrous if he stayed. 

Speaking of herding, Captain Effsee had apparently had enough of the Empire’s Finest monopolizing his prospective mate’s time, for he fluttered up to an even level with the tiny droid, interposed himself between her and his two-legged colleagues, and began chittering. In a strange aerial ballet, he fluttered about her so as to herd her back towards where he was supervising perch construction with his direct superior. M-FC chirped a hasty farewell to the humans and resumed her attempts to translate Admiral Phillay’s instructions to the maintenance crew.

In the interest of not causing his mind too much stress in one evening, Firmus looked about for something, _anything_ to distract him.  
  
Well. Wherever (and whatever) Lord Vader’s mysterious Force was, it clearly was not with Firmus Piett that night, for it seemed to take the request for _any_ distraction far too literally.

“What treason is this!?” he exclaimed over the tray of seed-studded crackers set artfully on a tray at the bar counter.

Crackers shaped like, of all the things to find on the jewel of His Imperial Majesty’s Fleet, a very familiar starbird crest. The starbird crest of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. There were rebel crackers on his ship. _Rebel. Crackers._

Max snagged one and savagely chomped a wing off (porgs, apparently, did not have the monopoly on violent chewing). “The tasty kind, I’d say! Kinda fun, biting off their little rebel wings. I suppose that’s the idea?” he directed the last at the bartender.

“Er, no, sir. Uh, actually, those are for the porgs, too.” Firmus should have figured. “Someone in COMPNOR worked up a psych profile on the little critters and concluded that offering them food shaped like that will cause them to associate rebel symbols with chewing. I guess it’s supposed to make them want to gnaw the rebs’ equipment to pieces even faster?”

It was…creative, Piett had to give them that. Everyone expected COMPNOR to mess with peoples’ heads; it was literally their job description. Apparently, the inability to read didn’t exempt one from the thought police, it just made them come up with alternate routes to get to you.  
  
“Ah, well, they’re still tasty. Can I get a batch of these for the Herd sometime? We can make a night of it, see who comes up with the most creative way to mutilate them.”  
  
“General, these can’t possibly be enjoyable! They’re assembled with a nutritional profile idealized for avians,” the bartender felt the need to point out. “They’re not seasoned or flavored in any way; they should be an affront to human tastebuds!”  
  
“They’re better than field rations!” not to be deterred, Max nabbed another one off the tray, popped the whole thing in his mouth, and crunched down on it. “My boys’ll like them, I promise!” Piett resigned himself to having to approve future requisition forms for _rebel crackers_. When did this become his life? 

Oh, yes. That’s right. It was when Lord Vader choked Admiral Ozzel to death remotely while Piett stood right next to the doomed man. How could he have forgotten? 

“Just…give me something that’ll knock me flat,” Piett begged of the ‘tender. “If I have to hear anything more about porgs tonight, I’ll…”  
  
“You’ll what, Admiral?” loomed a very distinctive voice from somewhere behind the beleaguered admiral.  
  
“Lord Vader! What a surprise!” And it was—Darth Vader hadn’t, in Piett’s recollection, ever set foot in the officers’ lounge. Socializing—and most probably lounging, too—was beneath the likes of a Dark Lord of the Sith.

“I have come to see that Admiral Phillay’s renovations have not caused an excess of disruption to the functioning of this ship.” Vader offered.

“The Maker is here!” Chirped M-FC with all the enthusiasm of a toddler high on glitterstim. The officers all stared at the droid’s exclamation. The idea of Darth Vader making a droid wasn’t the least bit shocking. Darth Vader was a mechanical genius; they were standing in the belly of a larger-than-life testament to that fact. The idea that Darth Vader made something so…high-pitched and…cheerful, however, threw them for all kinds of loops.  
  
(Were the _Executor_ crew ever to meet C-3PO, the idea of M-FC would suddenly make so much more sense. However, between that particular construct of Vader’s being in rebel posession and the man himself being unwilling to associate himself with the name Anakin Skywalker, the odds of this occurring were slim to none—and the scarcity of Corellians in the bridge crew ensured those odds would _not_ be promptly ignored.)

“Lord Vader!” Max’s good mood would not be deterred by the likes of any sith lords, “say, has that porg requisition form I filed gone through yet?” Piett prided himself on knowing, inside and out, every last form that made his ship run. He was not aware that the Empire _had_ any such thing as a “porg requisition form,” but knowing Max’s attitude towards paperwork (one which Lord Vader unfortunately shared—paperwork, too, was apparently beneath the notice of Dark Lords of the Sith), the so-called “form” was likely a hastily scribbled note on a piece of flimsy that Max had dropped on Lord Vader’s desk. Both mens’ aides-de-camp were probably tearing their hair out right about now.  
  
“I have found a porg willing to lead an Army detachment,” Vader indicated. “Once Colonel Durze has selected his unit they will be assigned to the Thundering Herd’s chain of command.” 

Piett took the drink the bartender had set in front of the man and promptly chugged it. He waved for another before he even finished the first. Whatever the man had served—and the admiral didn’t particularly care to find out—it burned gloriously as it went down. _A few more of these,_ the admiral thought, _and I’m sure I’ll find porgs far more tolerable_.

Whatever porg-themed insanity Max had been discussing with Lord Vader had apparently run its course, for the looming sith departed shortly afterward, to the relief of nearly everyone in the lounge. Standing in the presence of death incarnate was entirely normal during the course of their duties. Doing so on their well-deserved down time was just nerve-wracking.  
  
Apparently satisfied with the maintenance crew’s work, the arrival of Admiral Phillay and Captain Effsee at the bar counter was heralded by flapping sounds and a skritch of talons on marble. Two more starbird crackers bit the dust as each porg snagged one and started crunching. Crumbs flew everywhere as the waitstaff scrambled to clean up. That, at least, would be one problem solved by the construction of a porg-dedicated cliffside replica—they’d have a place of their own and the crumbs could be kept away from humans’ drinks.

 _Besides,_ Firmus thought to himself, _I never much liked the painting on that wall anyway._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Max is getting a porg. His name? Colonel Sann Durze. 
> 
> In case you missed the fast food pun here, M-FC is named for Maryland Fried Chicken, a somewhat less successful competitor of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
> 
> In canon (er, legends canon, not new canon) Commander Gherant was a friend of Piett's that the admiral handpicked to serve as part of the _Executor's_ bridge crew. As that's literally all we know about him, I decided he would be a good candidate for some character development. In this AU, he's also a bird watcher who catches Piett's attention for his encyclopedic knowledge of all things avian. I have him as a Lt. Cmdr. at this point; presumably he'll earn a promotion for mad porg-handling skillz sometime before Endor.
> 
> Speaking of bird facts, that bit about captive birbs making substitutions in absence of a conspecific mate is a real thing. Often, they come to the conclusion that whoever is most helpful to them—their owner or caretaker—must be their mate.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea when I'll get around to writing more of this nonsense, but I think I want each chapter to accompany a drawing of a Porg Commando featured in it... or something like that.
> 
> Also, if you're wondering whether the porgs are actually speaking a language (Porgtugese LOL?) or if Vader is "translating" gibberish to troll his officers—it's a little bit of both. They do communicate, but it's more simple ideas/concepts rather than words, and they react more to tones and a handful of Basic vocabulary than any particulars of a sentence. They'll learn more Basic vocab as the story progresses.
> 
> TLJ seemed to indicate they're at least sentient enough to process that Chewie killed one of their number and try and guilt trip him over it, but I don't think they're intended to be sapient…still, this is a crack AU, so I've decided porgs are about as intelligent as a bunch of ADHD preschoolers. (Anyone familiar with ADHD preschoolers knows that they would be potent tools of destruction were they ever to be weaponized.)


End file.
